Ducks: the daily scrum

And it wasn't much of a surprise that Nashville beat Colorado to take over sixth place. Judging by Nashville's schedule, the Predators have a great chance to go higher and maybe even seize home advantage in the first round.

The Ducks are off until Saturday night at San Jose, with a home game against Dallas on Sunday. The Stars remain six points behind Anaheim.

San Jose charged into second place in the West, supplanting Detroit. The Sharks have 99 points, Detroit 98, Phoenix 95, L.A. and Nashville 94, Anaheim 93, Chicago 90 and Calgary and Dallas 87.

The Ducks put first-round (sorry, "quarterfinal") tickets on sale Thursday and they will have a great chance of getting used if the Ducks can win one of their two weekend games.

Thursday:

Nashville 3, Colorado 2: The Predators actually could catch the Red Wings, since they're only four points behind them and play Detroit in Nashville Saturday. The Predators led 3-0 with seven minutes left. Paul Stastny is still playing hard for Colorado, winning 11 of 17 faceoffs.

Vancouver 3, Los Angeles 1: The Canucks outshot the Kings, 16-0, in the third period. The crucial goal was by Christian Ehrhoff, making it 2-1 with less than a second left in the second period. The Kings didn't take it well, with Drew Doughty going under the microscope for a tough hit on Daniel Sedin, and Kyle Clifford getting kicked out of the game for a hit on Chris Taney. Vancouver wrapped up the Presidents Cup for best record in the NHL, but no Presidents Cup winner has lifted the Stanley Cup since the '02 Red Wings.

San Jose 6, Dallas 0: San Jose was 12th in the West on Jan. 12 but is second now. It was the 50th multi-goal game in Patrick Marleau's career. Dallas had to use both goaltenders and was outshot 52-29.

Friday:

Calgary at St. Louis: The Flames are 3-0 against St. Louis this season, but the Blues are coming off a 10-goal night against Detroit. They also scored nine against the Ducks earlier this year. As a Flame, Miikka Kiprusoff is 17-2-2 against the Blues.

Chicago at Columbus: The Blackhawks can get to within one point of the Ducks with a victory here. Rick Nash missed Columbus' loss to Washington and is questionable tonight. The Blackhawks, missing Patrick Sharp, are considering using Brian Bickell to play on Jonathan Toews' line.

Colorado at Phoenix: This is a good chance for the Coyotes to improve their playoff position as they get the Avalanche on the back end of a back-to-back. Phoenix has beaten the Avalanche five consecutive times and has outscored Colorado 19-5 in the run. Vernon Fiddler returned to the Phoenix lineup but Ed Jovanovski remains questionable.

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